The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) released an aggressive statement earlier today after BCCI refused to tour Pakistan for |Asia Cup 2023. The PCB clarified its stance in the statement that if Asia Cup is moved out of Pakistan, it might affect the ICC tournaments which are to be played in India from 2023 to 2031.
While it wasn’t made clear in the statement what PCB meant by the ICC tournaments getting affected, but it can be made out from the statement that Pakistan Cricket Board can even think about boycotting the ICC tournaments in India if India doesn’t tour Pakistan.
The statement also says if India doesn’t come to Pakistan for Asia Cup 2023, it might “split” international cricket and the Asian cricket community altogether.
Asia Cup 2023 not the first Asia Cup which is in line to shifted
This aggression from PCB is a bit hard to understand because, in 2018, a similar situation had arisen where Asia Cup was shifted from India to UAE because of political issues between India and Pakistan.
Najam Sethi was the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board at that point in time and he was also the president of the Asian Cricket Council. He had made the decision to shift the tournament to UAE and BCCI, which was headed by the Committee of Administrators (CoA) had accepted the decision.
Now Jay Shah is the president of the Asian Cricket Council, apart from being the BCCI secretary and he has made the decision that Asia Cup 2023 will be shifted from Pakistan to a neutral venue, but PCB has said that Jay Shah has made the decision without talking to PCB and without talking to the executive board of ACC.
PCB responds to ACC President's statement
Read more ➡️ https://t.co/mOLMp4emI3 pic.twitter.com/wjjQQy4IXa
— Pakistan Cricket (@TheRealPCB) October 19, 2022
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PCB has also tried to suggest through its statement that it might even consider giving up its membership in the Asian Cricket Council altogether if the Asia Cup isn’t held in Pakistan next year. ACC is yet to respond to PCB’s statement and they have not even called for an “emergency meeting” that PCB has requested them for.
